July 2016

When it comes to the productivity, effectiveness and overall success of sales teams, data is key. Having accurate and useful data can make or break a sales team, but on the other side of that coin, focusing too much time and resources gathering, analyzing and reporting data can be a hindrance to a successful sales cycle as well.

“We spent $2 million on a selling system a few years back and our reps won’t put it into play. So we’re looking to drop another $1.5 million on a new program.” A senior sales executive from a major cell phone carrier was talking sales training with me, at a global conference.
“What selling system are you using?” I asked.
Turns out it was one of the top three in existence.

PowerPoint was originally created to improve and enhance presentations. With over 30 million PowerPoint presentations made each day, it has evolved into the default mode of all business communications. Ironically, with its success comes major pitfalls. PowerPoint often undermines the presenter and the product or service she is selling.

Gamification has become a popular method of improving sales because it works. Putting measurement devices such as leader boards, point totals, and scorecards in places where they are typically not found has been shown to improve performance. As Paul Graham of Y Combinator notes, “Merely measuring something has an uncanny tendency to improve it.”

More than ever, marketing departments are feeling pressure from CEOs and sales vice presidents to prove the return on considerable marketing investments. Producing attention-capturing campaigns doesn’t cut it anymore without an ROI.
Where does that leave you? Probably in a position similar to that of Michael Troiano, CMO of Actifio.

As Frank Sinatra crooned, as far as love and marriage are concerned, you can’t have one without the other. It turns out the same holds true for marketing and sales — though even Ol’ Blue Eyes would have had a hard time writing a rhyming ditty around that pair of words.

Whether you are a business leader or individual contributor, figuring out how to keep your value proposition relevant in a growing era of technology (robots, kiosks, apps, etc.)is going to be critical for ongoing survival.

As I prepare to write this article, a hundred things are running through my mind. First it’s June and the quarter close. Simultaneously I’m scanning my email “clutter” file to make sure MS Outlook still knows better than I do what is clutter and what isn’t. Intermittently, snippets of recent prospect and client conversations interject.

I’m sure many of us have unsuspectingly picked up the phone only to be ambushed by a fast-talking sales pitch. Despite making our best effort to extend professional courtesy, we simply don’t have time to listen to a sales pitch most of the time. The result is that we will typically do our best to end the call as quickly as possible so we can get back to work.